


Reunion

by devilinthedetails



Category: PIERCE Tamora - Works, Tortall - Tamora Pierce
Genre: Family, Gen, Journey's End, Mother and Son, Politics, Reunion, Sickness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-28
Updated: 2018-12-28
Packaged: 2019-09-29 09:40:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17201135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/devilinthedetails/pseuds/devilinthedetails
Summary: Jon is reunited with his mother at the end of his journey to the desert.





	Reunion

Reunion

Upon his return to the palace, Jon hurried to his mother’s quarters. Anticipation to see her again—the wild hope that she would be stronger than when he had left for the desert offset by the stomach-clenching worry that she would be worse—strained his every nerve and taunted each of his muscles. 

When he knocked on the door to her chambers with perhaps more force than he had intended, Lady Cythera, Mother’s social secretary and lady-in-waiting, opened it. 

“Your Highness.” Lady Cythera greeted him with a curtsy and warm smile. Rosy-cheeked beneath sunflower curls, she appeared a perfect portrait of health and beauty. Jon was tempted to invite her on private strolls through the fragrant palace gardens in romantic moonlight golden as her hair to fill the emptiness inside him after Alanna’s rejection, but he stifled the urge with a stern mental reminder that Gary had been courting Lady Cythera when he rode down to the desert. Gary had been notorious for going through women faster than women did fashions but he had been serious and steady in his courtship of Lady Cythera. Jon could only assume that his cousin’s devotion to the fair Lady Cythera hadn’t waned while he was among the Bazhir. “It’s good to see you safely returned from the desert.” 

“It’s always a joy to see you, Lady Cythera.” Jon kissed her fingers, assuring himself that he was being gallant, not flirtatious. “How is my mother?” 

“Her Majesty is as well as she has been every day since you left for the desert, Your Highness,” Lady Cythera answered delicately, and Jon recognized this as her gentle way of warning him his mother was still so frail she risked being swept to the Peaceful Realms of the dead by a powerful gust of wind. Roger’s magic had weakened Mother’s body as his betrayal had her soul, Jon thought, hands balling into fists. If Roger weren’t already rotting in a tomb more honorable than any traitor deserved, Jon would have killed him in revenge—a life for a life. 

“Is she well enough to see me?” Jon asked, a horrible part of him hoping that Lady Cythera would say Mother wasn’t strong enough for a visit from him so he wouldn’t have to see her wasting away in her bed. 

“She’s always well enough to see you.” Lady Cythera stepped away from the door, inviting Jon inside with a sweeping, gracious gesture. “She’ll be happy to know that you’ve returned from the desert in one piece.” 

Jon thought that he had only returned from the desert in one piece when his broken heart—invisible from the outside but paining him with every beat it made inside his chest—wasn’t considered. Moving into the next room, however, all his own hurt was forgotten at the sight of his mother hunched beneath blankets on her bed, body trembling with the effort of attempting an embroidery on her lap. 

“Jon.” Mother threw down her embroidery and lifted her stick-thin arms for him to embrace her. “My heart sings to see you again.” 

“Mother.” Jon wrapped his arms around her as tightly as he dared with the fear of shattering her frail bones shadowing his mind. Tears burned his eyes like desert sand as he held her—insubstantial as soaked parchment but still wonderfully alive—and realized he had been haunted by the nightmare of her dying before he could say farewell to her every moment since he had left her. “I didn’t want to leave you but duty demanded that I travel to Ali Mukhtab when he summoned me.” 

“You told your father and me there might be a chance that you could forge a peace with the Bazhir—that you could convince them to accept you as their leader—if you went to the desert.” Mother gazed at him with eyes that still shone with the hope of a more peaceful world. “Did you succeed with your mission?” 

“The Bazhir have accepted me as the leader of their tribes and won’t wage war against me.” Jon couldn’t explain the concept of the Voice to someone who had never experienced the power of Bazhir rites and magic. It would be like attempting to articulate the idea of color to one who had been blind since birth. 

“That’s the most magnificent news I could hear now. I’m proud of you.” Mother kissed his cheek, and he felt how dry and cracked her lips were when they brushed across his sunburned skin. “Your father will be too. He’s always hoped that you would follow in his footsteps, trying to bring more peace and stability to the realm.” 

“We all desire to live in a peaceful and stable realm.” Jon inclined his head and decided not to distress his mother by pointing out that he would forever be quicker to fight for his country’s security than his father. 

“In order to guarantee the peace and stability of the realm, a prince must marry well.” Mother patted his wrist, and he was shocked by how varicose her veins had become. “I know you were often talking about why a prince marries before you departed for the desert.” 

“Alanna and I won’t be doing anything so scandalous as marrying so you needn’t concern yourself with that, Mother.” Jon didn’t want to risk giving her a heart attack by admitting that he had proposed to Alanna as well. Alanna’s refusal made his proposal irrelevant. 

“Good.” Mother sounded as if a yoke had been removed from her slim shoulders. “There is a Copper Isles princess here at court whom I would like to introduce you to at the next banquet. She is beautiful, and her mother—an old friend of mine from the convent where I learned to be a lady—has no traces of the unfortunate insanity that has sometimes plagued the royal line of the Copper Isles. She would be a suitable bride for you, I believe.” 

“I would be pleased to meet such a beautiful princess.” Jon hoped that she would be beautiful enough to make Alanna jealous, breaking Alanna’s pride as Alanna had broken his heart with her rejection. 

“Marvelous.” Mother looked so excited that Jon’s cheeks flushed with guilt about misleading her in regard to his intentions toward the princess from the Copper Isles. “I’ll make the introductions at the next banquet, and if all goes well between you perhaps you’ll have a spring wedding. I’ve loved spring weddings ever since I married your father.” 

“Perhaps.” Jon could only manage a non-committal response to his mother’s enthusiasm as his mind began reeling with the need to invent a plausible excuse to leave before she could recognize how false he was. “I should go report to Father on my progress with the Bazhir.” 

“Of course.” Mother cupped his cheeks between her palms before dropping her hands to resume her embroidery. “I would never keep you from your father.”


End file.
